As previously discussed in lesson 1, having a CD or Tape player available during rehearsal is an invaluable tool. The ability to listen to a piece of music as a group makes the song’s learning curve a little easier.

If your band wants to get tight, all members must practice the material of a given song at home. You can’t take the chance of leaving it up to each member to be responsible for gathering their own material and practice at home. To solve this problem a band usually designates one member who is responsible for making copies of cover songs for each member to take home and practice along with. That designated person would have to put forth a bit of effort in order to burn individual songs from CD’s or download Internet tunes from their home PC’s and burn a CD full of cover tunes for the band to listen to. Some bands even swap and share digital files such as mp3’s or flash drives full of songs. This also advances the song learning curve by allowing each member constant and easy access to current material and a resource for further reference.

Another method to advance the learning curve of a particular song through individual practice and supplying the entire band with that song in an instant is through Google and YouTube. You can use this tool to e-mail videos to each member’s personal computer.  Now, how easy is that??  Through the use of Google, band members can sit in front of their computer and watch the video while they practice the song along with the audio.

Now, assuming that each member has a computer at home, the designated “song fetcher” can e-mail each member the video.  Google has access to literally googillians of videos, some of which aren’t worthy of a distant mention and some are not worthy at all.  Some videos are homemade tutorials, a lot of which aren’t worthy of mention and others are of “the average Joe garage-band guy” video taping him/herself performing their best rendition of another artist’s song.  Once again, some of these videos are not worth the “click” and others are extremely good.

I’m telling you all this because I truly believe that by using quality videos you can sometimes watch the original band perform the song and you can pick up playing tips along the way.  Whether you are a drummer, guitarist, pianist, bassist or whatever, watch & learn, listen & learn.  Use current technology to your advantage.  Make it easy & fun for your band mates to practice at home. Then when rehearsal time arrives, everyone will have listened to or hopefully have viewed, how the song is to be played.  It really is a valuable practicing too; USE IT!

In the next lesson, we will discuss how to utilize these original recordings as song structure, then tweek the arrangements to suit your playing abilities and styles.

Be sure to visit our New Tech Boomer Music Store Here.

Rock on Boomer Brothers & Sisters!!

Bill

Check Out The Phantom “Guitar George” and try to play along.

FIRST
Emergency

The Emergency Number worldwide for  Mobile is 112..
If you find
Yourself out of the coverage area of your mobile network
and there is an
Emergency, dial 112 and the mobile will search any
existing network to
Establish the emergency number for you, and
interestingly, this number 112
can be dialed even if
the keypad is locked. Try it out.

SECOND
Have you
locked your keys in the car?

Does your car have remote keyless entry? This may come in
handy someday. Good reason to own a cell phone:

If you
lock your keys In the car and the spare keys are at home, call someone a
t home on their cell
phone from your cell phone. Hold your cell phone about a foot from your
car door and have the person at your home press the unlock button,
holding it near the mobile phone on th eir end. Your car will unlock.
Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you. Distance is no
object. You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach
someone who has the other ‘remote’ for your car, you can unlock the
doors (or the trunk).

THIRD
Hidden  Battery   Power

Imagine
your cell battery is very low. To activate, press the keys *3370#. Your cell phone will restart
with this reserve and the instrument will show a 50% increase in
battery. This reserve will get charged when you charge your
cell phone next time.

FOURTH
How
to disable a STOLEN mobile
phone?

To
check your Mobile phone’s serial number, key in the following Digits on
your phone: *#06#. A 15-digit code will appear
on the screen. This number is unique to your handset. Write it down and < BR>keep it somewhere
safe.

When your phone get stolen, you can phone your service
provider and give them this code. They will then be able to block your
handset so even if the thief changes the SIM card, your phone will be totally
useless. You probably won’t get your phone back, but at least you know
that who ever stole it can’t use/sell it either. If everybody does this,
there would be no point in people stealing mobile phones.

And
Finally….

FIFTH
Free
Directory Service for Cells

Cell phone compani es are charging us $1.00 to
$1.75 or more for 411 information calls when they don’t have to. Most of
us do not carry a telephone directory in our vehicle, which makes
this situation even more of a problem. When you need to use the 411
information option, simply dial: (800)FREE411,
or  (800) 373-3411 without incurring any charge
at all. Program this into your cell phone now. This is sponsered by
MacDonalds.

This is the
kind of information people don’t mind receiving, so
Pass it on to
your family and
friends.